There was a time when Christians were pretty universally opposed to the practice of feeding people to lions. The reason was simple. They were the ones being fed to lions in the Roman Colosseum. These days, however, there’s a bit of division over the practice within the Christian ranks.
On Tuesday, an Oklahoma inmate named Clayton Lockett was slowly tortured to death after a botched execution left him conscious and convulsing while strapped to a gurney. He eventually died of a heart attack 43 minutes into this ordeal.
Oklahoma state Rep. Mike Christian (R), however, apparently sees no problem with Lockett’s slow and painful death. According to a local news report, Christian said that he doesn’t care if inmates are killed by lethal injection, electrocution, a firing squad, a hanging, the guillotine or “being fed to the lions.”
The tip-off to me that this state representative is a Christian was that he is named Mike Christian. But I would have been safe assuming he’s a Christian just by knowing that he is an Oklahoma Republican. He’s probably an evangelical, too.
The early Church fathers wouldn’t recognize him as one of their own.
